There are many people around the world who would like to learn English. But what is the best way to do it?

How to learn English?

Some people learn some English from watching American or British movies and TV. That sounds very difficult and potentially limiting to me. If I had done that, I might only be able to say “These aren’t the droids you are looking for.” How would that help me order a hamburger, medium-well, with cheddar, and sweet potato fries?

Others learn a few words from English language popular music. I don’t that think that would be too useful, given the typical lyrics in songs. English second language speakers who learned from pop music having a conversation:

“Shake your groove thang,” she said.
“Who dat? I shot the sheriff!” he replied.
“Beat it!”

It’s hard to be dedicated to learning English in the usual classroom setting in a non-English speaking country. You might be able to learn some vocabulary and basic grammar, and perhaps learn to read basic English. However, when the teacher is not a native English speaker, the students can sometimes learn strange things.

My niece Dorota visited my family in the US from her home in Poland. She had taken seven years of English classes in school and was a very good student. One day we were talking about verbs and she asked me to conjugate the verb “beholden.” She said that her English teacher back in Poland had a list of very important verbs and that this word was on it. She struggled with the verb’s conjugation and asked for help. I had to patiently explain to her that her teacher was misinformed and that nobody ever used the word “beholden” anymore unless they were writing poetry that no one would ever read.

I think the best way to learn English is to become a foreign exchange student for a school year in the US, the UK, Canada or Australia. Stay with a family with one or more students of a similar age. Attend a local high school in one of these countries. Get completely immersed in the English language. Go to class, make friends, and talk with your host family every day.

A couple of years ago we hosted a foreign exchange student from France. Natacha was not very confident speaking English when she arrived in August. My French from high school was very rusty, so I couldn’t help her out. She had to sink or swim on her own, with a little help from a French/English dictionary.
Within a few weeks of going to an American high school and talking with us every night she was becoming remarkably fluent. By the end of the school year in May, we couldn’t get her to stop talking!

How to best learn English? If you possibly can, get on a plane and go to any place where when you say “I’ll have a grande non-fat triple half-caff black and white mocha,” you get what you ordered.

More information on learning English may be found here => Kaplan International.

“Uncle, where is Route 66? Can we go see it?”

I started to think. Route 66, Route 66… that sounds familiar.  There must have been a movie or a TV show about it way back before I was born.  From the back corners of my brain’s database I recalled a vague phrase about getting your kicks on Route 66.  Yet I had to have an answer for my niece Dorota, who was visiting from Poland (she was our tour guide at the Polska Polka Party and in Krakow).

Route 66

“I don’t know Dorota. I’m not sure where it is.  I think it goes through northern Arizona.  Perhaps on the drive to the Grand Canyon we’ll find it.”

“I work with a man at the bakery who is obsessed with Route 66,” she said.  “He reads about it all the time.  He collects things about Route 66 that he displays in the office.  I want to go there and bring him something from Route 66.”

Not to be outdone in the knowledge of Americana by a Polish bakery manager, I knew I had some research to do.

Route 66 is known as the Main Street of America.  It runs from Chicago to Los Angeles.  Established in 1926, it served as the main highway for the people who migrated west to California, especially those fleeing the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.  It was also a main vacation route for millions.  Route 66 was popularized by a hit song and a TV show in the 1960s.

The highway ran through many small towns across the west.  The travelers along the route provided economic vitality to these small towns.  In the 1950s and early 1960s, the towns were bypassed by the new Interstate Highway System.  Nobody had any reason to drive the route through the towns when the interstate was so much faster.  As a result, the towns of Route 66 faded away or were stuck in a time warp.

As I analyzed the map, I saw that Route 66 goes through the small town of Williams, Arizona.  Great!  We’re going to stay overnight in Williams.  We’ll have a look around and see what we can obtain for the European Route 66 fanatic.

The last bypass.

When we got to Williams, we checked into our motel on the edge of town.  The motel was a little run down.  The TV in the lobby was tuned to the old western movie channel.  There were giant piles of snow still in the parking lot from the late winter snowstorm that hit a few days ago.  The desk clerk was asleep at the counter.  She was an old woman who looked like she had been there since the 1940s. It was that kind of town.

I rang the bell on the desk a few more times than was necessary.

“Can you check us in and give us a restaurant recommendation?  We’re starved.” I asked.

“No need to get uppity!” she said. “I’m right here and I can hear you. The best place to go is the diner down the street on the right hand side. You can’t miss it.”

“Thanks.  Can you also tell us where Route 66 is?” I asked.

“You’re on it,” she said, and promptly put her head back down on the counter and instantly fell asleep.

We drove down Main Street.  There were a few stores still in business, a gas station, and several decrepit motels serving the Grand Canyon tourists.  There was even the World Famous Sultana Bar!  I’d never heard of it, but then I am not very knowledgeable about cocktails.

It certainly is world famous...

It looked like any number of old west towns on a Friday night.  There was nothing to see and nothing to do.  Nobody was kicking anything.

And then on right was the diner, just like the old woman said.  Cruisers!  It was lit up in bright red neon and it had a 1956 Chevy sticking out of the roof of the restaurant like Godzilla had thrown it there once upon a time.  The décor was fantastic.  There were old gas pumps, advertising signs, posters, and car parts.  It was 1950s Americana, only it was too perfect, like a movie set designer had scoured the country for just the right things to set the mood.  I expected Fonzie to pop his head around the corner at any time and say “heyyyyyyyyyyyy!”

Any kicks to be had in here?

It would have been cool if the waiter matched the décor.  Instead he wore board shorts, skater shoes and his arms were covered with tattoos.  Apparently he didn’t get the memo about the ’50s diner theme.

The food was mediocre, the service was slow, and they didn’t even play ’50s rock and roll over the sound system.  Lady Gaga in a ’50s diner doesn’t cut it. However, they had the mother of all Route 66 souvenir shops in the adjoining store.

“Hey Dorota! They have everything you could possibly want to buy for your co-worker that has Route 66 on it.”

Shirts, hats, mugs, shot glasses, cards, posters, signs, ashtrays, you name it, they had it.  The store was packed full of Route 66 memorabilia.  Unfortunately, everything was made in China and was probably manufactured in the past few months.  I imagined a factory town somewhere in the Chinese interior with many large factories churning out all of this stuff.  I think the Chinese workers have no idea what Route 66 is, nor do they care.

After scouring the store she eventually bought a Route 66 placemat for the Polish bakery manager to add to his collection.  The placemat showed the route across the American West.  Williams, Arizona was not on it.

I learned that there are not many kicks left to be had on old Route 66.  It’s all gone now.  The only thing left are faux 50s diners and tacky gift shops.  But at least we found out where Elvis has been hiding all these years.

Elvis and two of his fans.

The sign intrigued me.  “See your aura!  Only $19.95!”

I had wandered into a small outdoor shopping mall in the town of Sedona, Arizona. In between the chocolate store and the Western art gallery was a souvenir shop.  The shop was brightly lit and had several crystals hanging in the window, sending the rainbow pattern dancing in the ether.

The red rocks of Sedona, Arizona

I was outside looking in.  I wanted to know more about my aura and see it too, if possible. Did I have an aura?  Nobody has told me about seeing my aura before.  Do I have a nice looking aura?  Does it look like a halo?  Or devil’s horns if I’ve done something bad that day?  Does it go through your clothes or does it get stopped?  I imagined that if you’re at the beach in your swimsuit then your aura must be shining at full strength. What if you’re snowmobiling and you’re wearing long underwear, a snowmobile suit, and a helmet?

The door banged shut as I entered and rang a little bell near the counter.  An attractive woman emerged from behind a curtain.  She was in her late 30s, with deeply bronzed Arizona tan, spiky hair, and mysterious tattoos running up one arm.  She had a Kokopelli medallion around her neck.  A small crystal pyramid was on the counter, next to a newspaper turned to the horoscope section.

“Good afternoon!  Welcome to the New Age Nirvana gift shop,” she said cheerfully. “How can I help you?”

I thought briefly about seeing if she could take care of my impending tax bill with Uncle Sam, or mentioning that her karma had run over my dogma, but thought better of it.

“I saw your sign in the front window about seeing my aura.  I’ve never seen mine before.  I’m curious.”

“Everyone has an aura displayed to those around them,” she replied. “Your aura affects those around you, especially your soul mate.  However, the aura is present only in the fifth dimension.  Some people who are completely in tune with the forces of Mother Earth can see it in others.  Most people need special equipment to detect it.”

“Can you see auras without the special equipment?  Can you see my aura now?” I asked.

“Not right now.  I can see auras only when I am practicing a certain secret yoga position and smoking peyote.”

She led me to the back of the store into a small, very dark room.  She had me stand with my back to the wall and then she disappeared.  A few seconds later I heard her voice behind me, coming through an opening in the wall near my head.

“I am now going to show you your aura,” she whispered.  “Please look straight ahead.”

Colorful shapes appeared out of the darkness.  All of the colors of the rainbow were flowing outward from a humanoid shape a few feet in front of me.  As I moved my head and arms, the rainbow colors moved with me.  It was magical.

“I can tell that you have a good aura,” she said.  “You must be a good person.”

I’d had enough.  I quickly crossed the small room and groped along the wall.  I flipped the light switch to find that the room contained a large flat screen TV mounted on the wall opposite from where I had been standing.  There was a webcam mounted above the TV.  A cable ran from the TV along the floor and disappeared into a hole in the wall to the room behind this one.

The woman burst into the room.

“What are you doing!” she cried. “You’re destroying your aura!”

“I’m an investigative reporter on a joint assignment from Penn & Teller’s TV show, the Skeptics Society, and the Onion,” I lied.  “You’re busted!  Your special equipment is nothing but a webcam, a TV, and a computer with a gesture recognition program.”

She scowled and kicked me out of her store.  I couldn’t even buy a local map with directions to the best vortex.

A red rock monolith in Sedona

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Hop on and tour the Amalfi coast...

I rode the tightrope on the side of the road. I didn’t want to leave the yellow line next to the curb. The traffic was heavy even though it was a Sunday afternoon. Cars whizzed past my right side, inches from my elbow. I pedaled faster as my heart raced.

Shoot, there’s a bus directly in front of me! How could I have not seen that big red double-decker? The brake lights of the bus lit up and the bus stopped. I braked hard and skidded to a stop while I inhaled the suffocating exhaust bellowing from the massive tailpipe of the bus.

I quickly glanced behind me. Another giant double-decker was bearing down on me. I was going to become a bus sandwich! The brakes of the second bus squealed and the behemoth slowed to a crawl behind me. It then occurred to my carbon monoxide-addled brain that I was in a bus stop.

Maybe renting a bike in London wasn’t such a good idea.

Watch out for those big red things!

London was in the midst of an early fall record heat wave. It was gloriously sunny and the high was in the mid-80s. Londoners sprawled over every available square inch of grass in the city, trying to soak up enough rays to tide them over through the bleak coming winter. England hadn’t had a real summer. The weather had been dark and rainy for weeks. Summer was officially over, but finally a brief period of sunshine broke out. This happened to coincide with my visit. I had expected cool and rainy weather. I had a raincoat and was prepared to use it. I could even buy an umbrella if there were going to be downpours. Instead I pulled the shorts back out of my suitcase.

I was staying in a flat in the Butler Wharf area of Southwark, on the south bank of the Thames River in central London. Butler Wharf is a neighborhood of gentrified warehouses near the south base of the Tower Bridge. It was quite a distance from the West End, but the views of the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge at night were spectacular.

Tower Bridge in London at night

I often strolled along the Queen’s Walk between the Tower Bridge and Waterloo Bridge. The Queen’s Walk is a promenade along the south bank of the Thames River. By crossing over the Waterloo Bridge I could get to the Theatre District and the restaurants near Covent Garden.

On this day I decided to stay on this side of the Thames and seek out the Imperial War Museum. I had always wanted to see the museum, but its location is far from anything else worth seeing in London. Getting there hadn’t ever worked into my plans on previous trips. This time I was determined to explore every exhibit in the First and Second World War rooms. I was by myself and could take as much time as I wanted. I set off for the London Bridge Tube station.

Go down the hole, George, down the hole...

The Underground is a marvelous thing in London. Taxis are very expensive and walking can only get you so far. The bus system is good and everyone should ride a double-decker bus at least once (get a seat in the front row on the top!). But the Tube is a cultural icon as well as an efficient transportation mechanism. For years after an earlier visit to London with my children we would spontaneously chirp “Mind the Gap!”

Once in the Tube station I learned that one of the lines was closed for maintenance. I was taking a different line, but so were thousands of people who would have been on the closed line. Down on the subway platform I approached a large crowd. I took my place in the crowd and waited for the next train.

The train arrived with a giant whooossh of air. It was completely packed. The people were like the proverbial sardines in a tin can. The doors opened but no one got off. After a few moments the doors closed, the train sped away, and the crowd collectively sighed.

The Tube station was full of hot, stale air. Sweat ran down my face and down my back. I remembered that I had forgotten my water bottle. This was not what I expected London to be like. It was steamy like Hong Kong or Singapore, not typical London.

Another train arrived 10 minutes later. It was packed too. It was a weekend afternoon and every train was packed to the gills. Was I really in Tokyo? Eventually enough trains came by, enough people got off, and my spot in the crowd moved forward until I was destined to get on the next train. As I waited my turn I kept wondering how London was going to host the 2012 Olympics. I vowed to not be in the same hemisphere during the event. Transportation is sure to be a nightmare.

The next train came to a stop. I could see a slight crease in the crowd of passengers on the train. I politely maneuvered my way into a spot just inside the door. I was trying to give the mother with the baby in the stroller a modicum of space. There were about two dozen people crammed into a six feet by ten feet space. Personal bubbles were compressed almost into nonexistence. It was a pickpocket’s dream scene.

Just as the doors were closing, several young men with immaculate hair pushed their way into the huddle. They were dressed in bright colored polo shirts and tank tops. I got pushed so I was leaning sideways over the stroller, by shoulder to the wall, my head near the door. The side of the head of one of these guys was two inches from my nose. He started talking loudly and flamboyantly.

“I hope you boys wore your deodorant today,” he said to the others.

At the first stop I mumbled “excuse me” and pushed my way out. I made it to the Imperial War Museum and had a nice tour of the exhibits. After visiting the museum I rested in a nearby park and planned my next move.

The Tube on a good day.

For the trip back home I had a dilemma. I wasn’t willing to tackle the Tube again. I could take a taxi, but there didn’t appear to be any in this part of town. I could take a bus, but I had no idea where the bus stop was or what route the buses would run. I might end up in Dover. I did have a map, and it was a splendid day, so I decided to walk. I figured it was about two miles back to the Tower Bridge.

A couple of blocks away from the museum I saw a strange kiosk. It looked like an old American phone booth that had been squashed between trucks. Alongside the kiosk was a row of heavy grey bicycles.

I had seen these kiosks before around the city but hadn’t paid any attention to them. They are Barclay’s Cycle for Hire kiosks. London had recently installed hundreds of these kiosks, which are full of thousands of bikes. Pick up a bike at one location, ride to where you need to go, and drop it off at the closest kiosk. This is the way to overcome the congested roads, expensive taxis, crowded Tube trains, and uncertain bus rides of central London. What a great idea!

Can I ride with you?

I followed the directions on the kiosk and swiped my credit card. Nothing happened. The menus on the kiosk screen kept taking me in circles. I used to be a computer programmer and have used many different user interfaces and menus. I consider myself to be an advanced user of modern high technology. The simple act of renting a bicycle using a computer had me baffled.

I tried again and again, forgetting about the common definition of insanity. I began to get frustrated. What kind of idiot designed this system? It doesn’t even work. No wonder I have seen lots of bike rental kiosks but not very many bikers riding these heavy clunkers on the city streets.

Finally the machine gave me a code to release a bike for my use. It told me my credit card would be charged 1£ for the rental (about $1.55). I adjusted the seat and took off. I rode down quiet side streets and zig-zagged my way back towards the Thames. I covered many blocks without much effort. Riding was so much better and more fun than walking I thought as I cruised along.

As I got closer to London Bridge the traffic started to thicken. I moved off the side streets and rode down Borough High Street, a main thoroughfare in Southwark. I hugged the left curb and moved with the traffic. I knew I had to cross the street at the next intersection to take a right turn. My mind got confused as I dealt with the heavy traffic, pedestrians, other bikers, and motorcycles. Horns were honking and lights were changing. I kept looking to the left and back over my left shoulder when I should have been looking right and back over my right shoulder.

I made it across the road and into a warren of streets past the London Dungeon and the Tower Bridge to Butler’s Wharf. Whew… That was hectic. I had been afraid of being hit by a car every second of the last ten minutes. There was safety in the back streets. Where can I drop off the bike?

After circling a few blocks I found a nearby kiosk and pushed my bike into an empty slot in the rack. What now? How do they know I returned the bike at this location? Or at all? I reasoned there must be some sensor or ID tag on the bike that I couldn’t see.

A man was kicking the kiosk. “Bloody stupid thing” he muttered. He pulled out his cell phone and called the number on the kiosk. He complained to the customer service representative that he had gotten no indication that he had returned his bike. He started arguing with his phone as he walked away.

I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have a cell phone. The kiosk sign said a fee of 150£ would be charged if the bike was not returned. After monkeying around with the kiosk interface for a few minutes, I gave up and went back to my flat. I would just have to deal with it later.

When I got home my next credit card statement had a charge on it from Barclay’s Cycle for Hire. After the currency exchange, the charge was about $6. I don’t know why it was that amount. I rode their bike for about 30 minutes over two miles. However, it was better than 150£ and better than walking.

Just barely.

The Tower Bridge on a warm, sunny day

My article about visiting Krakow, Poland, was recently published in Vagabundo Magazine.  Click here to read it.

Thanks!

Rynek Glowny in Krakow, Poland

It was a strange feeling to wander the empty halls of the large resort.  I was used to big city crowds, being packed into U-bahn cars like sardines, and waiting my turn for things.  Here I was the king of the castle.  I was the only guest at my very own private hotel.  Had I turned into Howard Hughes? I better check my fingernails…

The beach at Porto de Mos outside Lagos, Portugal

I had been in Berlin trying to decide where to go next.  It was the nearly the end of September.  Going north to Scandinavia meant colder weather and dark skies.  It was too early to head for London. I had never been to Portugal before. I thought it must still be sunny and warm there.  I picked the town of Lagos in the Algarve region of southern Portugal on the map at random.  I searched a travel web site for a Lagos resort with an available room and free wi-fi.  Near the top of the search results was the Belmar Spa and Beach Resort.  No reviews, a blank slate.  I’ll be adventurous and give it a try.

When I arrived at the front desk around 10pm the clerk was sleeping.  There was a golf tournament being shown on the nearby television so maybe that explained her stupor.  The bar in the lobby was deserted except for a lone bartender polishing glasses and staring forlornly at the Atlantic Ocean.  There were no other guests coming or going.  Maybe it’s an older crowd here, where they go to bed by 10pm instead of partying until 4am.  That’s ok with me, at least it won’t be noisy when I’m trying to sleep.

The next morning I awoke to the sounds of the pool guy cleaning the pool deck.  In the bright sunshine I could see that I had been assigned a nice apartment with a tremendous view of the enormous pool and the ocean beyond.  Southern Portugal looks like Southern California, but without the smog, traffic, or billboards for lap band surgery.

Which room is mine?

I headed over to the restaurant around the corner from the lobby bar.  A waiter stood by the counter checking the polish on her nails.

“Good morning,” I said.  “Is the restaurant open?”

“Yes, sir.  Please sit anywhere you like,” said the waiter in proper British English.

I surveyed the room.  It was completely empty of guests.  I had my pick of the tables.  The one in the middle with the excellent view will do nicely.  I wondered if the crowd here was also a late sleeping crowd.  Where were the guests who couldn’t function without their morning coffee?

After eating some eggs I approached the counter.  I was still in Europe where the waiter never seems to come back to the table after the food is delivered.  After a minute the waiter reappeared through the kitchen door.

“I’d like my bill please.  Just put it on my room.  I am in C1G.”

She searched her computer list for my name and room number.  It was a very small list.

“Thank you, Mr. Steve. Have a nice day!”

My daily hiking path along the bluffs over Porto de Mos Beach

I went to the pool.  Or should I say I tried to go to the pool.  The resort had several pools.  The largest pool was right below my second floor balcony.  I could see the pool and perhaps even spit into the pool, but I couldn’t actually get to the pool.  I don’t know much about Portuguese architects, but if I am ever in the market for one I will import an architect from somewhere else.

I went downstairs and headed for where I thought the pool was.  At the end of a corridor I came to a junction with three unmarked doors.  One went to the parking garage.  One went to a storage room.  Ahhhh!  It must be door number three.  Nope, that one went to where they stored the garbage.  I backtracked to the front desk.

“Excuse me.  How do I get to the pool?” I asked politely.

“Do you mean the big outdoor pool between buildings C and D?”

“Yes, the pool I can see from my room.  I am in C1G.”

“Go downstairs. Go through the third door on the left, down the hall, take a right, go through the second door on the right, through the spa reception area, then take a left and the first right, into the men’s changing room, exit the men’s changing room via the shower stalls, down the hall to the indoor pool, wade through the indoor hydrotherapy pool (stop for a massaging blast from the jets while you’re there), and up the stairs of the outdoor hydrotherapy pool.”

My eyes had glazed over during the monologue.  I mumbled something incomprehensible and walked down the stairs.  As I wandered the halls I noticed that most of the doors had no signs.  A few doors had paper signs taped to the wall with something written in Portuguese.   They were not very helpful to me.  Could it be that the resort was so new they hadn’t put up any signs yet?  Without good signage, guests navigating this floor layout could get lost for decades.

After multiple mistakes through private spa rooms, the manager’s office, and the empty women’s changing room, I finally made it to the pool deck.

Which way to the pool?

When I was on a cruise ship, lounge chairs were a valuable commodity.  People would get up early, sprint up to the pool deck, and reserve their favorite chair.  (For my typical response, see The World’s People on a Cruise Ship).  In the Belmar Spa and Resort, there was no need for such tactics.  There were no people by the pool.  Hhhmm, I must be early.  Maybe the other guests are playing shuffleboard somewhere or attending a needlepoint class.  I picked a chair with a good angle to the sun and stretched out.

By lunch time no one had joined me at the pool.  I had an eerie feeling as I worked my way through the maze back to my room.  What if I had entered an old Twilight Zone episode where the housemaids killed the guests and the cook made stew with the remains?  What if the previous guests had gotten the bubonic plague and the Portuguese authorities covered up the outbreak to protect the Algarve tourist industry?

I went back to the restaurant.  It was still empty.  The bored waitress was standing in the same spot as before.  Sit anywhere you like she said.  Right.  I can do that because nobody else is here…  This didn’t mean I got my lunch any sooner by the way.

After lunch she asked me what room I was in for the bill.  The same room I was in four hours ago…. C1G.  It’s not like she had looked up any other rooms in her list that day.

By mid-afternoon I decided that being the only guest was a good thing.  Maybe this is how Bill Gates or Warren Buffett lives when they go on vacation.  Do they buy out a whole resort for security and privacy?

In the next few days a handful of guests arrived.  I saw them in the lobby once in a while. However, the feeling of solitude remained.  I still had the restaurant and the pool to myself.  The waitress learned my name and room number.  The pool guy sprayed the pool deck and the maids mopped my tile floor everyday whether they needed to or not.

Soon enough it was time to go back to the real world.  Wait in line, take turns, and fight traffic.  To live the way everyone else lives.

Almost all East Berliners follow the traffic rules as if discovery of any minor infraction would land them in the old Stasi secret police interrogation room. The Stasi must have had informers on every street corner, watching to see what happened at every change of the traffic lights.

The interrogation was brutal.

“Do you know why you are here?” asked the Stasi interrogator. He was a grey-faced middle aged man with tiny eyeglasses. His fraying uniform was rumpled like he had slept in it. But he was still tired, and cranky. I don’t think he liked his job.

“No. I was near the Alexanderplatz.” I said. “Next thing I know I woke up here.”

I wanted to take the U-Bahn to the Museum of the Wall at Checkpoint Charlie. I was going to read about East Berliners attempting to escape the communist DDR. Some of them made it to the West; many of them were shot within feet of freedom.

I had been standing across Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse from the Alexanderplatz in the heart of East Berlin. I needed to cross the street. Since no cars were coming, I calmly strolled across the road to the other side. I had made a big mistake.

“Let me inform you of your recent subversive, anti-socialist activities. It has been reported by multiple sources that you disobeyed a direct order from the Ampelmann. The Ampelmann never told you to go, and you ignored him and went across the road anyway.” I could see the man was prepared to recite the relevant regulations if necessary.

“Uh, ok. Who is this Ampelmann? I never saw any police officers telling me what to do, or not do.” I pleaded ignorance.

“The Ampelmann is the organ of the state that prevents chaos on the roads. If you disobey the Ampelmann, it could lead to the complete unraveling of the socialist worker’s paradise that we have here. We can’t have that. Furthermore, you might get hit by a car and killed.”

From the back corners of my brain I started to grasp what he was talking about. I had noticed that at every intersection in East Berlin there were interesting lights for the crosswalk. Instead of a bland stick figure of a humanoid illuminated in green to indicate it was safe for pedestrians to cross the road, there was something else. Something with more style. The figure was confidently striding forward to a utopian future, or perhaps a bread line, bent slightly at the waist, arm extended. On top of his head was a snappy fedora at a jaunty angle. The Ampelmann!

The Ampelmann says go!

“When the Ampelmann shows up in green, you may safely cross the road,” he continued. “When the red Amplemann has his feet together and his arms crossed, you must wait.”

Now I understood the programmed behavior of the Berliners. At every crosswalk, pedestrians wait like robots for the Ampelmann to tell them to go. They do not even think about crossing the road without the Ampelmann’s blessing. The Berliners do this even when the road to be crossed is a very minor side road, perhaps ten feet wide, and there are no cars in sight for kilometers and several minutes. They might even wait half an hour.

Once in a while some brave, independent, free-thinking and rebellious person (usually a young man with piercings and tattoos) ignores the Ampelmann and goes for it. He looks left, right, and then left again, and steps off the curb. The other pedestrians stare at him in shock and disgust, like he has taken the last piece of apfelstrudel at the family reunion. How dare he disobey the order of things! The Ampelmann must be followed at all costs. Our enlightened leaders have told us this for over forty years. What would happen if we thought for ourselves? Anarchy!

The Ampelmann out for a stroll

I felt something bump me from behind. It was a young woman carrying several packages from the Kausthof Galeria, the big department store next to the Alexanderplatz. She was smoking. Everyone smokes on the streets of Berlin. As she exhaled her toxic plume into my face as I turned around, she muttered something in German. Probably excuse me.

“Hey, watch where you are going,” I said.

She answered me in English. Everyone speaks English in Germany.

“I’m sorry. The light is green. Why are you still standing here?”

I must have drifted off while waiting for the light to turn. I know I had waited long enough. The crowd of shoppers surged forward around me like water in a stream. I was the rock stuck in place.

I didn’t know what to say, so I turned back, tilted my hat forward, and moved one foot in front of the other across the street. Ahead of me, the green Ampelmann was striding forward into the future, with one leg still in the past.

…..

The Ampelmann has become a popular figure in post-unification Germany. There are Ampelmann shops selling all kinds of Ampelmann-branded products. This may be part of a nostalgia among some Germans for the old days of the DDR.

Everything Ampelmann for the serious collector

My extended family in Poland really knows how to throw a good party.  We were staying with my aunt and uncle in Laka, a small village near the town of Pszczyna in southern Poland.  Since we were there, they decided to invite my other aunts and uncles and all of my cousins to a big barbecue party. Many of the cousins didn’t see each other regularly despite living only a few hundred yards from each other.  I hadn’t seen some of my cousins in 13 or 27 years.

Roll out the barrel!

It was a Saturday in September and one of the last good days of summer.  Around 1pm one of my cousins started a wood fire in the grill.  After he had some hot embers, he mounted two giant hams on a large spit.  He tended the fire the rest of the day.  I started calling him the Grillmaster.

Everyone arrived around 3pm.  The hugs and kisses seemed endless.  Then it was time to party.  The first thing on the agenda was to eat dessert.  In Poland, the dessert is often served before anything else.  Many kinds of home-made cakes were brought out of the secret basement pantry.  Tea and coffee were served.

The polka band started playing during dessert.  The band consisted of my cousin’s two sons, Martin (17) and Kuba (12).  Martin played the accordion and Kuba played the bass drum.  The boys played with spirit and energy.  Polka songs all sound the same to me.  Still, it is happy music and great for getting a party going full steam.

Martin and Kuba, our polka band

The first wood smoked ham was ready.  It was taken off the spit and sliced with a giant carving knife.  It tasted delicious.  The aunts had prepared potato, rice, and cabbage casserole dishes to go along with tomatoes from the garden.  I skipped all of that to concentrate on the ham and fresh bread.

It tasted delicious!

Cases of Zywiec beer appeared.  Since I was there, some of them were actually stored in the fridge to be cold for the American guest.  The rest were room temperature.  Some people mixed beer with a couple of different things.  Some people liked their lukewarm beer with a fruity syrup.  I tried that and it tasted awful!  Others poured half a glass of beer and then dumped Coke into it.  I didn’t try that because it just looked bad to me.

After dinner it was time to drink vodka shots and some combustible Greek aperitif that tasted like it should be used to scour the barnacles off of a ship’s hull.  During the drinking I noticed that quite a few of the family had disappeared from the table.  I thought that’s pretty normal when 40 people are gathered.  Some people have to fix more food, make phone calls on their new cell phones, or walk off some of the beer and vodka buzz.

Then the band started up again and a dozen people danced out of the house.  They were dressed up in costumes like it was Halloween.  We had a Native American chief, Charlie Chaplin, cowboys and cowgirls, women dressed as men, and men dressed like the prostitutes I saw standing by the side of Polish highways.

It's early for Halloween... do they even have that here?

The costumed people danced with wild abandon.  They brought the party to life.  They got everyone to leave the food tables and dance like crazy people.

When we were all tired out from dancing, the second ham was ready to eat.  We all sat down to a second dinner.  This time we also had Polish sausage and some strange substance that was cooked on the grill in tinfoil.  I thought I’d try some of that mystery food.  It turned out to be blood sausage.  I took one bite and that was enough for me.  It was nasty stuff.

As the sun set, more beer was consumed, more vodka shots were downed, and the conversations got louder and funnier.

Everyone enjoyed being together again, like in the old days when we were all so much younger.  Time passes but the bonds of family remain.

To see a short video of the Polska Polka Party dancing, click here.

I had never heard of black light theater.  I don’t go to the theater very often and when I do the lights are usually on.  But when I am traveling I like to do some things that I don’t do at home.  The guide book stated that Prague in the Czech Republic was known for magnificent Old Town architecture, a thriving art scene, and black light theater.  I thought it was worth giving it a try.

The Ta Fantistika Theater and the Charles Bridge

I remember black lights from when I was a teenager.  At the Minnesota State Fair, you could buy fuzzy posters of dogs playing cards, Elvis, or maybe a tiger.  Then if you had a black light in your bedroom, parts of the poster would glow in hallucinogenic colors while you listened to 1970s Aerosmith albums.

Black light theater works in a similar way, except the music is different.  The play is a combination of mime and modern dance, so there is no language barrier.  The actors wear costumes that glow in the dark under the black light.  There are also others on stage but you can’t see them at all because they wear fuzzy black clothes, gloves, and masks.  These hidden stagehands move props and assist the actors in performing stunts and controlling optical illusions.

The Castle Quarter across the Charles River in Prague

I went to the black light theater called Ta Fantastika, near the famous Charles Bridge on Karlova Street, in the Old Town section of Prague.  The show was called “Aspects of Alice.”  It purportedly was an artistic and poetic take on “Alice in Wonderland”, but I couldn’t see the connection.  In this play, the main character was a young woman, not a girl, and there was no Mad Hatter or other crazy characters.  Maybe I am thinking of the Disney animated film, since I have never actually read the book by Lewis Carroll.  I couldn’t quite pick up the story line.

The stunts were interesting at first.  The young woman was secretly hooked to a wire at times that lifted her into the air and allowed her to twirl and fly around the stage.  The stagehands moved candle lights and other props without being seen.  However, the illusions quickly got repetitive and the odd organ and piano music grated on my ears.

The Charles Bridge on the Charles River

I was starting to drift off during the second act.  That often happens when I sit in the dark after dinner.  Although it was an uncomfortable chair, my head was nodding.  My attention lagged until the star of the show emerged from a giant day-glo apple with almost no clothes on.  She performed the next few minutes of the show topless.  I’m not sure how that fit into the Alice in Wonderland storyline. I never saw that in the cartoon.

I spent the rest of my time in Prague seeing the typical sights that the city is known for.  I walked through the Old Town Square with the 14^th century Old Town Hall and the 500 year old Astronomical Clock.  From Karlova Street and the theater I reached the Charles Bridge (Karluv Most) over the Charles River.

Astronomical Clock in the Old Town Square

I strolled through the Jewish Quarter (Josefov), shopped for typical Czech souvenirs in the Little Quarter (Mala Strana), and visited the Old Royal Palace, St. Vitus Cathedral, and the Golden Lane in the Castle Quarter (Hradcany).  Since none of these places were bombed during World War II like other European capitals, the original architecture spans hundreds of years and many styles.

As I left Prague, I felt like I had visited EPCOT instead of a real major European city.  There were crowds of tourists from all over the world, things were expensive, and the buildings and streets looked too perfectly preserved.  Was I in an artificially generated tourist environment?  I wasn’t sure…

I don't understand modern art